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FG opts out of Lisbon report
Sunday, November 30, 2008 By Niamh Connolly, Political Correspondent
Fine Gael has failed to make any submission to a high-profile Oireachtas committee on Ireland’s future in Europe.

Some 73 submissions were made to the special committee that invited TV and radio personalities, newspaper editors, academics and political groups to outline their views on how Ireland should deal with its rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.

Fine Gael is part of the largest grouping in the European Union, the EPP. Last week, its party leader Enda Kenny hosted a press conference on the Lisbon Treaty - just two days before the special committee published its report. However, this weekend, the party was on the back foot over its failure to make a submission to the committee.

Sean O Neachtain, a Fianna Fail MEP, said he was ‘‘flabbergasted’’ that not one of Fine Gael’s TDs, senators or MEPs had made a political submission. Fianna Fail made a submission through their MEPs. ‘‘What sort of message does this send out to the international business community and to other European governments, when the second largest political party in Ireland fails to make its own political submission to the Irish parliament’s own committee dealing with the fallout from the Lisbon Treaty referendum defeat?” said ONeachtain.

But Billy Timmins, Fine Gael’s foreign affairs spokesman, hit back, saying he was ‘‘delighted that Fianna Fail MEPs made a submission and maybe now if there’s a second referendum they’ll take the time to go out and campaign for it.

‘‘It’s time Fianna Fail stopped feeling so precious about themselves and started addressing the concerns of the public - this can be done by adopting the Fine Gael measures,” he said. Timmins denied it was either an oversight or a strategy to keep its policy under wraps until it could unveil it at last week’s press conference.

Fine Gael had been preparing its own policy since last August, he said, but believed the role of the committee and the report was to analyse the research carried out by the Millward Brown study, to listen to expert witnesses and conduct a report based on the analysis.

‘‘We felt the role of the committee was not to push the Fine Gael policy out there but to analyse the findings of the Millward Brown report,” he said.

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